I find Raider strange, if you can't trash Copper then it's just a big Cutpurse thing, but if you have trashed your Coppers then your deck is often in a state where discarding 1 card doesn't do much either and it hurts about as much as Urchin. I can see a small window where your deck is starting to kick off but you still have a few Coppers/Estates left where the attack could be devastating, but things would have to line up right and I'm not sure how often I'd want to spend a $6 buy on a stop card at that stage. I guess it can punish early greening maybe?

It seems better than the first 1 or 2 Golds in Big Money, but that's only come up for me once so far and my Raiders missed the shuffle a few times so it didn't work out well on that occasion. But if they don't miss it's clearly better than Gold so I assume that was just a bad game, small sample and all that.

Like, ďsucksĒ in dominion is relative, thereís still times youíll buy it, thereís still boards for it, and if it kills a turn once it was probably worth it. But damn itís expensive and hard to make work for a payoff greater than forcing a Copper discard. Buying two cards to force a discard attack every turn that seems to miss more easily than Militia, a card you only need one of... and having those cards cost $6... Ugh.

At least itís competitive with Gold once an engine is consistently set up. And if you are lucky and careful enough to force a Village discard its awesome.

Raider sucks lol[...]At least itís competitive with Gold once an engine is consistently set up.

So what would a fair price be for a Night-Duration card that was just "At the start of your next turn, +$3"?

5$, I'd say. It wouldn't be great compared to other 5$ s that give +3$, simply because in the very early game it's worse than those and in the midgame you could have Gold instead, but I don't see it at 4$, honestly. Some people will say 4$ is enough, but I'd rather give such a card a little extra boost, or some slight additional downside to make it work for 4$.

There is a benefit of damaging the current turn while boosting the next one, and of not taking an Action slot. Otherwise, you could wonder how Den of Sin is $5 while Moat is $2, or while Enchantress is $3.

It varies, right? When the turn you damage buys a 2$ card that'd you'd happily spend 4 on, then shoots your next turn that would have been a 3$ turn to a 5 or six, that's sweet. But if it sends you from 5$ to 8$, and you don't have a +buy and it's early, you probably don't gain that much (probably you buy the Province anyway, but it's not really a powerful pickup too early).

There is a benefit of damaging the current turn while boosting the next one, and of not taking an Action slot. Otherwise, you could wonder how Den of Sin is $5 while Moat is $2, or while Enchantress is $3.

The delayed effect is a Lost City, but the delay comes with a price (mostly by missing reshuffles/being effective only every 2nd engine turns). Lighthouse is not a Peddler, Caravan is not a Laboratory.

The question is if there should be a penalty to being a Night card as opposed to a cantrip +action duration action card. Action card can be trashed for benefit by Sacrifice and Zombie Apprentice, they are not skipped by Wandering Minstrel, they don't interrupt a series of cards drawn by Scrying Pool, can be Advanced, can be played before Tactician and before Haunted Forest takes effect, deliver a +Action to Ironmonger and so on. The on-buy effect of some of these Night cards should balance this out, so I would agree that Ghost Town would be bought at $4 too.

The delayed effect is a Lost City, but the delay comes with a price (mostly by missing reshuffles/being effective only every 2nd engine turns). Lighthouse is not a Peddler, Caravan is not a Laboratory.

The question is if there should be a penalty to being a Night card as opposed to a cantrip duration action card. Action card can be trashed for benefit by Sacrifice and Zombie Apprentice, they are not skipped by Wandering Minstrel, they don't interrupt a series of cards drawn by Scrying Pool, can be Advanced, can be played before Tactician and before Haunted Forest takes effect, deliver a +Action to Ironmonger and so on. The on-buy effect of some of these Night cards should balance this out, so I would agree that Ghost Town would be bought at $4 too.

The delayed effect is a Lost City, but the delay comes with a price (mostly by missing reshuffles/being effective only every 2nd engine turns). Lighthouse is not a Peddler, Caravan is not a Laboratory.

The question is if there should be a penalty to being a Night card as opposed to a cantrip duration action card. Action card can be trashed for benefit by Sacrifice and Zombie Apprentice, they are not skipped by Wandering Minstrel, they don't interrupt a series of cards drawn by Scrying Pool, can be Advanced, can be played before Tactician and before Haunted Forest takes effect, deliver a +Action to Ironmonger and so on. The on-buy effect of some of these Night cards should balance this out, so I would agree that Ghost Town would be bought at $4 too.

Ignoring the more detailed discussion, it's not basically a Lost City, even in the simplest terms.

When you play a Village, you end up with 1 more action than you started with (playing Village costs an action and removes a card from your hand, then you draw another card and get 2 actions).

When you play a Lost City, you end up with 1 more action and 1 more card than you started with.

When you play a Ghost Town, you end up with 1 more action than you started with (playing it removes a card from your hand but doesn't cost an action, then you draw another card and get an action). That makes it very firmly a kind of "village". not a kind of "laboratory".

I think Ghost Town is a good card, in the sense that it adds interest to the game rather than that it's mega strong. Compared with vanilla Village, it has a series of upsides and downsides which make it play very differently in practice:

You can play it the turn after you buy it, without waiting for a reshuffle

It can't be drawn dead

It gives its benefit at start of turn, when it's most valuable

It's in play for two turns, so shuffles through more slowly and can only be played at most once every other turn

It's no help to you on your current turn

It's not an action, so interactions fail with all sorts of things (throne rooms, Adventures tokens, Vassal/Herald/Golem, Ironworks/Ironmonger, and so on.)

Is it better or worse than a normal Village? That's hard to tell, and very situational. $3 seems a fair price, and in any case how often will you ever have the choice between the two?

The delayed effect is a Lost City, but the delay comes with a price (mostly by missing reshuffles/being effective only every 2nd engine turns). Lighthouse is not a Peddler, Caravan is not a Laboratory.

The question is if there should be a penalty to being a Night card as opposed to a cantrip duration action card. Action card can be trashed for benefit by Sacrifice and Zombie Apprentice, they are not skipped by Wandering Minstrel, they don't interrupt a series of cards drawn by Scrying Pool, can be Advanced, can be played before Tactician and before Haunted Forest takes effect, deliver a +Action to Ironmonger and so on. The on-buy effect of some of these Night cards should balance this out, so I would agree that Ghost Town would be bought at $4 too.

In most games I would buy it at five

You'd also buy Tunnel at five tho

I'm surprised you'd actually remember me saying that but that one I take back. I would buy tunnel at 4. But I would still buy ghost town at five.

Ignoring the more detailed discussion, it's not basically a Lost City, even in the simplest terms.

When you play a Village, you end up with 1 more action than you started with (playing Village costs an action and removes a card from your hand, then you draw another card and get 2 actions).

When you play a Lost City, you end up with 1 more action and 1 more card than you started with.

When you play a Ghost Town, you end up with 1 more action than you started with (playing it removes a card from your hand but doesn't cost an action, then you draw another card and get an action). That makes it very firmly a kind of "village". not a kind of "laboratory".

I think Ghost Town is a good card, in the sense that it adds interest to the game rather than that it's mega strong. Compared with vanilla Village, it has a series of upsides and downsides which make it play very differently in practice:

You can play it the turn after you buy it, without waiting for a reshuffle

It can't be drawn dead

It gives its benefit at start of turn, when it's most valuable

It's in play for two turns, so shuffles through more slowly and can only be played at most once every other turn

It's no help to you on your current turn

It's not an action, so interactions fail with all sorts of things (throne rooms, Adventures tokens, Vassal/Herald/Golem, Ironworks/Ironmonger, and so on.)

Is it better or worse than a normal Village? That's hard to tell, and very situational. $3 seems a fair price, and in any case how often will you ever have the choice between the two?

(In any case, Ghost Town has lovely art. (-8 )

I'm pretty sure we all know that you love the art for ghost town. Personally it's not my favorite art, farmlands the best